Coming to Our Senses

[Mole]

These forums are replete with misreadings. Quite often we don't understand one another, and sometimes we don't want to, leading to a plethora of misreadings.

We often comment on this and seem to think it is a bad thing. And we try and try to make our meanings clear to one another.

And it is this attempt to be clear and arrive at agreement that creates our conversation.

But perhaps we are mistaken. Perhaps we should take it to the next level. Perhaps we should revel in misreading. This does not mean we abandon shared meaning. But rather than sharing the meanings of our readings, we share the aesthetic of our misreadings.

This means looking at the world with different eyes. No, instead of looking at the world, we taste and touch the world, we listen to the world and dance with the world.

It means abandoning the privilege of the eye, and democratising all the other senses. And so we sense everything at once with our ears, our eyes, our finger tips, our nose, our ears and our dancing feet.

At first we seem overwhelmed by our senses and nothing makes sense, until finally we come to our senses.

 

[BlackCat]

We let go of a certain ego fixation, or our cognitive dissonance suddenly gets clear to us and we stop rationalizing?

 

[ThatsWhatHeSaid]

You wouldn't happen to be reading this book, would you?

 

[Mole]

Literate Dogs

You wouldn't happen to be reading this book, would you?

It's more that print privileges the eye, while the electronic media democratise the senses.

So the problem is that we have all been imprinted with print. We have been compelled to go to school to learn to read print. And once having learnt, we can't stop. Yet here we are now on Central immersed in an electronic medium.

We do our best but our best is a facsimile of print. The best we can do is eprint (electronic print).

We are literate dogs returning to our literate vomit.

Sure, there are all kinds of therapies to help us move from literate man to electronic man. But we are comfortable with print and print has its own momentum. After all, the electric telegraph was only invented in 1840 while the printing press had a head start in 1440 and never looked back.

And print has runs on the board. For print has created the modern world while the electric media are still at the crease.

I like to walk down the street listening, tasting, seeing, touching and dancing in my imagination. Sure, I am overwhelmed by the sensations and so I have a break and have a coffee and read something.

So it's like interval training. First I engage all my senses, then I have a break by limiting myself to one. Then I repeat the intervals until I am exhausted.

Most of us are unconsciously limited to one, but the electronic media beckons and all we have to do is listen, taste, touch, look and dance, all at the same time.